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Was it basically sauerkraut? People in north-eastern China (across a river from North Korea) all eat something basically indistinguishable from sauerkraut.
by girzel 8y ago
Was it basically sauerkraut? People in north-eastern China (across a river from North Korea) all eat something basically indistinguishable from sauerkraut.
- mikekchar 8y agoKimchi is usually made with fish sauce (which stinks to high heaven when fermenting, but adds super umami when finished). I'm being stupid and reading the comments before I enjoy TFA, so maybe it is all explained there, but for me (even more than the hot peppers) that fish sauce really defines kimchi, though I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.
- girzel 8y agoInteresting. The Chinese stuff is definitely just salt, no fish sauce.
- pwaai 8y agoYou are accurate in that fish sauce is the original but people switched to shrimp sauce because it was less pungent. I think when you salt the veggies and then coat it with a mix of garlic pepper paste and wait for fermentation to occur, flavor is produced. Like if you ate a newly seasoned Kimchi you can tell it's not ripe until it eventually develops its flavor after fermentation has taken place.
- yongjik 8y agoNot just fish sauce, but usually a lot of tiny shrimps, and occasionally whole oysters and octopuses thrown in, depending on the region. I once heard a coworker saying "In my town, kimchi is half cabbage and half oysters." (To which another coworker jokingly replied, "That's because you grew up in a rich family! Hah, half oysters!")
- MDib 8y agoYep! It's called Xian Cai (salted vegetable) or Suan Cai (sour vegetable) and like basically any other cuisine, there are dozens of variations on it across China. If you look at the picture on the wiki [1] you'll see that it's fermented almost exactly like sauerkraut, albeit whole not sliced. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suan_cai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suan_cai